


the last good day of the year

by belovedmuerto, djchika



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2018, M/M, Magical Realism, Post-TWS, road trip fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 06:04:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14889029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto, https://archiveofourown.org/users/djchika/pseuds/djchika
Summary: Just after the fall of the Triskelion, Bucky collects Steve from the hospital, and they go on a road trip.Steve's just going with it, for once in his life.





	the last good day of the year

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaah, I had so much fun with this, and with the RBB2018. Art is by the delightful djchika. I had so much fun working with you, hun! I hope you enjoyed the collab as much as I did!
> 
> Thanks to my wonderful cheerleader wearing_tearing, and to my beta readers who all stepped up at the last minute: 743ish, bennettmp339, and multifandomfics.
> 
> Any mistakes still left over were either missed by all of us or were intentional.
> 
> Also thanks to the RBB Mods who helped me FIND those betas at the last minute. <3

The most horrifying thing he can remember ever happening to him is watching the target-- the Captain-- Captain Goddamn America-- Steve plummet towards the Potomac River.

Granted, his memory is only a couple of days long right now, but he’s seen some horrifying shit in the past in that time. He’s had some horrifying shit happen to him, done to him. He’s pretty sure he just beat the ever-loving fuck out of possibly the only person in the world who actually cares about him.

He has no idea who he is.

But it seems important, that the target called him a friend. Refused to fight him. Dropped that big dumb hunk of metal target he wears on his literal back all the time. Like an idiot. Apparently this guy who calls him a friend is an idiot. He probably shouldn’t let him drown.

Fuck.

It is the easiest thing in the world, diving into the river after the Captain.

It’s easier than it should be, actually. At least he thinks it is, when he sees the Captain’s outstretched hand. It’s like he’s reaching for the Winter Soldier. It feels like the water wants him to reach Steve, like the water is pushing him towards the Captain. It’s very disconcerting, and he nearly loses the breath he’s holding when he realizes it, that he can feel what the water wants. But then he manages to grasp Steve’s wrist and everything else ceases to matter.

He leaves Steve on the river bank, because he’s been shot several times and needs a hospital, at least for a day or two (who shot him? What a bastard, gut shots and everything. Asshole). 

And beyond that, he needs supplies and a car, before he can collect the Mission--the Captain-- _Steve_ and go… somewhere. He doesn’t know where, but away from here. Away from SHIELD, from HYDRA, from DC. Just. Away.

\----

Steve wakes up slowly; the room he’s in is dim, and Sam isn’t next to him anymore. The room is quiet except for the-- no, it’s just quiet, the heart monitor behind his head isn’t beeping anymore, and for the briefest of moments, Steve wonders if he’s dead.

He’s not sure what woke him up, but someone is muttering behind his head, in the general vicinity of….

Steve twists his head around and-- oh, it’s just Bucky. Muttering to himself in… Russian? 

_I should learn Russian._

He’s working his way through turning off all of Steve’s monitors, and the IV dripping whatever drugs they’re giving him into his veins; that’s gonna suck later on, since Steve is pretty sure it’s something major because he’s actually feeling it. But it’s Bucky doing the work, and that’s even better. He’s here. He must remember, if he’s here. 

Well, hopefully.

“Buck, hey,” Steve mumbles. 

The muttering over his head stops, and a hand comes down on his shoulder for a moment, gentle. Then the muttering starts up again, and Bucky finishes turning off the monitors. Steve watches blearily as Bucky goes to the door and takes a quick glance up and down the hall before he comes back, picking up a duffle bag and putting it on the bed at Steve’s feet. It clanks, ominously. He digs out what turns out to be some gauze, and takes all of Steve’s IV lines out with careful fingers. Steve appreciates the gentleness when he presses the gauze to the sites.

He wonders where the guards are. It takes several him a while to actually get through wondering; all of his thoughts are fuzzy and seem to be coming from very far off, like they have to trek down a really long tunnel to reach him. After that, he wonders where the nurses are, and it’s exhausting, so he stops. He knows that he’s got at least a couple of them. And anyway it doesn’t matter, because Bucky is here, in the room with him, and Steve honestly doesn’t think he needs anything else at all. 

Bucky doesn’t seem overly interested in killing him, either. So that’s good. Steve watches Bucky tugging at his hospital gown, pulling it down from Steve’s neck so he can inspect the new skin on his stomach, where the bullet holes had been.

There’s a brief moment where Bucky presses his hand against Steve’s stomach, and looks up at him with a pinched sort of look around his eyes. There’s a sort of tenseness, around his shoulders too.

“Buck, it’s OK,” Steve mumbles. And it is. It’s Bucky, he can forgive anything; he’s just so happy that Bucky’s alive. Bucky’s _here_. He puts his hand over Bucky’s, and Bucky. Bucky glares at him and says something that Steve does not understand at all because it is not even remotely in English, and pulls his hand away.

He goes back to his duffle bag and starts pulling out clothes. A t-shirt, and sweatpants and oh, thank god, underwear. Socks follow that, and then a pair of sneakers, a zip-up hoodie, a hat; he’s got the whole nine yards. 

Steve is starting to think that Bucky has been planning this out, in the last two or three days, or however long it’s been since Steve fell in the river. It warms him, thinking that Bucky’s been planning to come for him.

Hopefully not to kill him, but Steve’s really fine either way right now. 

But he dutifully, and gingerly, gets out of bed when Bucky gestures at him impatiently, and pulls on the underwear that Bucky hands him, and then the sweatpants. He sits on the edge of the bed to put on the socks and haphazardly shoves his feet into the shoes.

Steve runs into an issue when he pulls the t-shirt over his head. It’s way too small, for one thing. He can see his own nipples outlined clearly in it, and there’s no lights on in the room.

It’s also got his shield on the front of it. 

Bucky had given him a Captain America t-shirt to wear, and when Steve looks up at him with a glare, Bucky is cackling. 

Cackling quietly, almost silently, but still. Cackling.

Steve glares at him. “Someone will recognize me, Buck.”

Bucky says something, gesturing at him. It is not in English.

“English, please, Buck.”

Bucky stops for a moment, and then speaks again. It’s still not English. Steve is pretty sure it’s Russian, actually, but he’s not entirely sure. It sounds like Russian.

“I don’t understand you,” Steve says. “Is English not working right now?”

Bucky shrugs, scowling. He seems frustrated. 

“Do you understand me?”

Bucky nods.

“Well, at least there’s that. I can’t wear this shirt, someone will definitely recognize me.”

Bucky snorts.

“What?”

Bucky starts gesturing. First, at his own eyes, and then at Steve’s. Then he points at Steve’s chest. He makes what is definitely a cupping motion, and then points at his eyes again, and then Steve’s again. Then he makes a slashing motion across his throat.

It takes Steve a moment, but he gets it. No one is going to be looking at his face while he’s got the t-shirt on.

Bucky must see him realize, because he leers at Steve, very much staring at his chest.

Steve crosses his arms, blushing furiously and glaring at Bucky.

Bucky cackles some more, snatches the hoodie off the bed and shoves it back in the duffle bag. Steve makes an aborted grab for it, but he’s not moving very fast, and Bucky evades him easily. Instead of giving him the hoodie, he hands Steve a pair of glasses, and then ruffles his hair. Steve goes to smooth it back out, but Bucky slaps his hand away and makes another gesture, an admonishing one. 

Steve leaves his hair alone. He crosses his arms over his chest again instead. He feels more naked in the t-shirt than if he hadn’t been wearing anything.

Bucky makes a _stay put_ gesture and goes back to the door, checking the hallway again before he leaves the room. Steve sits on the edge of the bed, tying his sneakers while he waits. 

Bucky returns a moment later, motioning at Steve to follow. Steve does, without a thought, without question.

\----

It is ridiculously easy to get out of the hospital. 

Bucky is right, no one looks at Steve’s face. Mostly because they only come across a couple of people, but those people are all definitely too busy staring at his chest to meet his eyes. They cross the parking lot at a leisurely pace that Steve knows is for his own benefit, and Bucky unlocks the doors of a Civic. He puts the duffle bag in the trunk (it clanks again) and throws the hoodie at Steve before he shuts it. 

Steve puts it on gratefully and gets in the passenger side.

Bucky pays for the parking spot with cash and a smile at the attendant while Steve fidgets in his seat, and they wind their way through late-night DC traffic until Bucky gets them on the Beltway.

Steve sort of zones out for a while as they drive west, on I-66 and then south on I-81. Steve watches the scenery pass by in the darkness outside the car. Bucky fiddles with the radio every now and again, keeping it so that there’s something soft playing in the background.

Steve lets it lull him into something close to a doze. He is mostly healed from the gunshots, but not entirely, and he’s definitely weaker than usual.

If Bucky wanted to, it would be easy as hell to take him out now, finish the job. Kill him. 

“You gonna finish your mission, Buck?” he asks, voice coming out slurred with sleep and soft.

Bucky glances over at him, and snorts. “Nyet.”

“You could just be saying that, lulling me into a false sense of security.”

Bucky starts talking. It’s still in Russian, and he sounds angry. Put out. Well, angrier than he’d sounded before when he spoke. Bucky just sounds kind of angry when he’s speaking Russian.

“I have no idea what you’re saying,” Steve points out.

Bucky snorts again, and rolls his eyes. Steve takes that to mean that he’s not planning to kill him, at least not anytime soon. 

“I’m hungry.”

Bucky nods at that, and Steve settles back into the seat to watch the scenery for a while longer.

They pull into a McDonalds drive thru about thirty minutes later. 

“Good morning!” the chirpy person on the speaker says. “What can I get for you today?”

Bucky starts to order, and then seems to remember that he doesn’t speak English currently, and sits back, looking over at Steve.

Steve laughs a little, and leans over Bucky. “Hey sorry, my friend is currently mono-lingual, and it’s not English.”

There’s a brief pause. “Okay, no problem sir. What can I get for you?”

“Give me just a minute, please. Sorry about this.” Thankfully, there’s no one behind them in line.

“No prob,” she says. He hears what he assumes is gum popping over the speaker.

Steve briefly considers, and figures out what he’d order, and then he doubles it, and starts ordering: six breakfast sandwiches, eight hashbrowns, a couple of yogurts, two large cups of coffee with a lot of half and half and sugar, and four bottles of water.

“Damn,” the drive-thru worker breathes once he’s finished. “You guys enhanced or something?”

“Yeah,” Steve replies, with complete sincerity. “I’m Captain America, actually.”

Bucky smacks him, but he pulls around.

The workers all peer into the car when they pull up to each window, but Steve has the glasses on and he’s scruffy and grimy, and besides everyone knows that Captain America is in George Washington University hospital in a coma or some such bullshit, so they both seem disappointed to see Steve and Bucky, just two big guys who eat a lot of food. 

“Smartass,” Bucky mutters as they pull away from the restaurant. But he takes the Egg McMuffin that Steve hands him and takes a huge bite of it.

“Hey, English! It’s coming back!” Steve says. “That’s awesome, Buck.” 

Bucky flips him off, and turns back onto 81, headed south.

“So where are we going?” Seve asks, eventually. The sun has come up, and they’re somewhere in Virginia, he thinks. Maybe West Virginia. He should see about getting a map. Or a phone, if Bucky will go for that. Shit, he needs to call Sam.

Bucky shrugs, and gestures out the front of the car.

Steve scowls at him.

\----

They stop, eventually, around the middle of the afternoon, at a roadside motel. Steve thinks they might be in Tennessee, but he’s not entirely sure. He finds he doesn’t really care, though, if he’s being entirely honest with himself.

Bucky gets out of the car after gesturing at Steve to stay put, and heads towards the front office. Steve has no idea how he’s going to manage to get them a room if he isn’t English-speaking at the moment, but he sits back and waits.

He comes back with one key, an actual key with a plastic keychain attached. Steve finds that amusing, for some reason. He makes another gesture at Steve to follow him, and grabs the duffle bag out of the trunk. Steve follows him across the parking lot to room 13, and Bucky lets them in.

The room they’ve got is sparsely furnished; just two beds, a nightstand with a lamp and an alarm clock, and a chair in the corner. Steve slumps down on the bed closer to the door. The bed is far too soft but Steve can’t bring himself to care. He’s tired. He’s not sure why: he isn’t the one who’s been driving all night, but then he supposes he was kidnapped from a hospital before fully recovering from multiple gunshot wounds, a couple of broken bones and a lot of contusions.

OK, maybe that’s why he’s tired.

Bucky dumps the duffle bag on the same bed and just stares at Steve, until Steve figures out that Bucky has no intention of letting him sleep closer to the door. Steve drags himself up to standing with a groan and takes the other bed. Just as soft. Whatever. He slumps over and shuts his eyes, not even bothering to pick his feet up off the floor.

Bucky makes a derisive noise, muttering something to himself in Russian. Steve can more or less guess what it is, something about him being a dumbass of epic proportions and exceedingly stupid. The same stuff Bucky’s been saying about Steve since they were both very small children. It’s just in a different language. It’s still probably the most comforting thing he’s heard since he woke up from the ice.

He must drift off, because the next thing he’s aware of, Bucky is shoving at him, gently.

“Huh?” Steve opens his eyes and looks up at Bucky, who is scowling down at him.

Bucky says something. He makes a couple of gestures.

“What?”

Bucky’s scowl deepens, and he shuts his eyes for a minute. “Going. Out. Stay.”

Steve grins up at him. “OK, since you asked so nicely.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and shoves Steve again, but the corners of his mouth are lifting just a bit. He leaves, and Steve turns over and goes back to sleep.

\----

He wakes up when Bucky comes back into the room, and it must be several hours later, because it’s dark. He brings with him a whole bunch of bags and the scent of food.

Steve’s stomach rumbles loudly, and Bucky smirks at him, dumping all the bags on the bed closer to the door. He starts rummaging through the bags of food and handing Steve containers of what turns out to be Chinese food. Steve is about ready to start eating with his fingers when Bucky hands him a pair of chopsticks.

“Thanks, Buck,” Steve says, mouth already full of General Tso’s Chicken. It’s hot and spicy and delicious and perfect. Bucky sits down across from him with his own food, and for a while the room is quiet but for the sounds of them eating.

“What else did you get?” Steve asks, when he’s finally had his fill and the Chinese food is pretty much decimated. He has a little bit of beef with broccoli left still, and he offers the container to Bucky, who’s been eyeing it for a few minutes now.

Bucky takes the container and digs in. Steve looks over at the other bags, but doesn’t get up to go look. He has a feeling Bucky will want to show him; he’s not sure why.

Sure enough, after he’s shoved the last of the food in his mouth, Bucky puts the empty container aside and gets up, gesturing at Steve to come over and look.

The first couple of bags are full of clothes. Basics, mostly: underwear and socks and a couple of sweatshirts, tees and sweatpants and some jeans. Steve is surprised; he’d assumed that’s what was already in the duffle bag.

“What’s in the duffle bag, then?”

Bucky looks at him like he’s insane, and then drags the duffle bag over and opens it.

Guns. It’s just full of guns.

On second thought, Steve really isn’t at all surprised by that. Oh wait, looks like there’s a couple of knives in there too. Bucky probably has most of those on his person at all times, come to think of it.

“Oh.”

Bucky pats him on the arm, making it abundantly clear without a word what he thinks of Steve’s assumptions about his priorities.

Other than the clothes, there’s a couple of boxes of protein bars, a package of Oreos (???), a box of hair dye and a set of hair clippers. Steve has a vaguely bad feeling about the dye and clippers.

Steve’s not really sure what to do next. He’s still very tired, but he’s also not sure he’ll be able to go back to sleep. He has no idea what Bucky’s planning for him, for them. He doesn’t know if he should ask, especially since Bucky isn’t really speaking much English yet. He’s doing fine communicating the basics and what he needs Steve to do, but this might be a little beyond them right now.

It’s frustrating.

Bucky grabs the hair dye and gives Steve a significant look before he heads to the bathroom. Steve watches him go, not getting up to follow until Bucky sticks his head back into the room, glaring at him.

“What are you doing, Buck?” he asks, as he squeezes into the tiny space.

Bucky points at him, and then holds up the box of dye.

“Ah.”

Bucky points at the toilet, the only place for Steve to sit down.

Steve just looks at him. Bucky gives him a little shove.

“Do I have any say in this?”

“Nyet.”

Steve sighs. “I figured.”

Bucky gives him a look that clearly means, ‘then why’d you ask, punk?’

Steve shrugs, and sits.

Bucky drapes one of the motel towels around his shoulders and starts taking stuff out of the box.

Steve does not watch.

When it’s over, Steve’s hair is a dark chestnut brown. It’s not terrible, but Bucky is giving him a critical once over, and he shakes his head, clearly dissatisfied with the results. He gestures for Steve to wait, and he disappears from the bathroom for a moment, coming back with the clippers.

“Damn,” Steve mutters, but he submits without protest. Soon enough Bucky has buzzed most of his hair off. He makes Steve stand and turn around, and then pats his cheek and gives him a thumbs up.

Steve is confused for a moment, before it hits him. “Keep the beard?” Not that it’s a beard yet, but it might be, in a few days.

“Da,” Bucky says.

Steve shrugs. “Whatever you say, Buck. You’re in charge.”

Bucky nods. He takes the towel off of Steve’s shoulders and wraps it around his own, hands Steve the clippers. Runs his hands through his hair and looks expectantly at Steve.

“You want me to cut your hair, too?”

Bucky nods, and sits down on the toilet.

Steve is not sure this is a good idea. And he sees the way Bucky tenses when he steps up behind him, and he sees the way Bucky twitches when he turns on the clippers, so he turns them off again immediately and takes a step back.

Which is good, because Bucky is exploding off the toilet and across the room, pressing himself against the door, eyes wide and feral.

Steve tries to make himself small, which is a lot harder than it used to be. He reaches out slowly and puts the clippers on the sink. “Let’s not do that, ok?”

After a few very tense moments, Bucky nods, and relaxes just a fraction.

Steve waits, and Bucky stares at him from the door and slowly, slowly relaxes back to what has been his normal state of tension for the last day or so. Eventually, he leaves the bathroom. A moment later, Steve hears the room door shut, and he lets out a breath.

“That went great,” he mutters.

\----

He waits a while for Bucky to come back, and he eats a couple of the Oreos and a protein bar, and he turns on the little tv in the room and stares at it without actually seeing it for a while. None of the channels seem to come in very well, and everything seems sort of slow-moving and a little strange. Eventually, he more or less gives up and goes to bed, or at least he turns out the lights and gets under the covers.

Steve must doze off, eventually, because he startles awake when the door opens again, in the dark hours before dawn, and Bucky comes in. He moves soundlessly around the room for a few minutes, checking things Steve thinks, before he sits down on the other bed and seems to settle in to--what? Steve’s not sure.

“You should get some sleep,” he mumbles.

Bucky grunts, neither affirmative nor negative.

“I can watch for a few hours so you can,” he goes on, rubbing at his eyes and stretching a bit.

Bucky snorts.

“I can keep watch Buck, I’m not an idiot.”

He can feel Bucky’s eyes on him, but he just waits. Eventually, Bucky slumps over in the bed and shuts his eyes, not even taking off his boots.

Steve sits up and turns the tv back on, muting it so it won’t disturb Bucky, and keeps watch.

\----

Early in the morning, before the sun has even come up, Steve gets up and stretches. Bucky is awake already; he’d only slept for a few hours. It hadn’t seemed very restful to Steve from his view of it, but he doesn’t ask.

“I’m going outside for a bit,” he says. The sun hasn’t come up yet, it’s the perfect time for him to find a patch of ground and, well, ground himself for a while.

And that’s what he does. He puts on shoes and a hoodie and goes outside, walking around the little motel until he finds a nice patch of grass behind it. He finds what he’s pretty sure is their room, so Bucky can see him from the bathroom if he looks, and he laments the dew in the grass for a moment before he sits down cross-legged and shuts his eyes.

It takes a few moments since he’s made sure that no bare skin is touching the ground, but eventually Steve feels the connection between him and the earth flare to life. It’s a warm feeling, power flowing through him, and he breathes a sigh of relief. It makes him feel safe and it’s the closest thing to _home_ he’s felt since Bucky had gotten on a ship to Europe, before Steve had even found this connection to sustain him.

He sits for a while; he’s not sure how long he’s there, but he can feel the warmth of the rising sun on his face when it breaks over the horizon. After a while, he notices that he’s being watched. It doesn’t feel malevolent or intrusive, more curious than anything else.

Even without opening his eyes, Steve is fairly certain that it’s Bucky watching him, so he lets it happen. He doesn’t allow himself to tense up like he usually does when he knows someone is watching him. This is Bucky, after all. Even with everything that has happened over the last couple of weeks, he still trusts Bucky.

Well, mostly. He’s not entirely sure he should, but he can’t help it. It’s instinct, ingrained in him somewhere deep down where he can’t control it, no matter how rationally he reasons through not trusting him.

Eventually, Steve gets to a point where he feels pretty good. He’s reconnected with the earth, and it has helped him heal just a little bit more. Truthfully, it’s mostly the serum doing the work, but the magic doesn’t hurt. And it makes him feel better mentally, too.

Steve opens his eyes slowly. With the way the sun has been shining on him, everything is washed out for a few moments, and he blinks until his eyes adjust and he sees Bucky crouched down against the building, arms wrapped around his knees. Watching him. Just watching, a little tilt to his head, hair in his eyes.

“What are you doing?” Bucky asks. His voice is soft, but it carries.

Steve grins. “Hey, English! Awesome, Buck.”

Bucky glares at him.

“Um, I guess I’m sort of meditating? Grounding myself?”

“Being on the ground?”

“Feeling the earth, yeah,” Steve agrees. “It’s the magic. It helps me heal, a bit. Or at least, it makes me feel better.” He shrugs, a little sheepish. It sounds silly, saying it out loud. He’d never learned how to talk about magic as a child, because he hadn’t had any until he’d gotten the serum and the dose of vitarays.

For several minutes, they’re quiet. Bucky is just watching him, and Steve can practically see him thinking, although he has no idea what about.

“Did… I have magic?”

Steve blinks, surprised. He can’t imagine Bucky without magic. It was always there, a huge part of their lives as kids. “You don’t know…?”

It’s probably an awkward question, and the light breeze seems to blow the words away, but it’s out there. He can’t take it back, even if he doesn’t really want to know. He’s pretty sure he’s not prepared to know what HYDRA did to Bucky, all those years and decades they had him.

Bucky shrugs and looks away, down at the ground.

Steve assumes he’s not going to answer at all, and is thinking it might be time to get moving, get some breakfast, figure out what their next move is, when Bucky speaks.

“It wasn’t allowed to do magic.”

Steve can’t help the tears that spring to his eyes at that, but he fights them back, dead certain that Bucky won’t appreciate it, will take it as pity. He can’t imagine not being allowed to use his own magic, as terrible as he is at controlling it. He can’t imagine Bucky without the ability to call water whenever and wherever he needs it (and it had saved their asses more than once in the war, that’s for sure, whereas Steve even taking his boots off at night was a helluva liability).

He’s not even going to touch on the dehumanization of Bucky being made to think of himself as “it”. He can’t go there right now and still function, he’s certain of it. So he sucks it up, because he needs to take care of Bucky as much as Bucky is taking care of him, consciously or not.

“Yeah Buck,” he says, and his voice is only a little bit watery. “You always had magic. Water was your element. It did whatever you wanted it to do. It’s amazing.”

Bucky seems to think about that for a while. Steve starts to wonder if he should get up.

“I think they used to let me. When I was in Russia.”

“I’m sure it’s still there, Buck. Maybe you just need a little practice. It’ll come back to you, I’m sure. Magic always seemed to love you. Everyone did.”

Bucky shrugs and stands from his crouch. “We should get moving.”

“Okay.”

Steve stands up and follows Bucky around the building and back into their room, where everything is already all packed up. Steve changes quickly into a dry pair of sweats, since the dew had dampened the ones he slept in, and puts his shoes back on, and they get back in the car and head out.

\----

“So,” Steve says, a while after they’ve stopped for breakfast. “Um.”

Bucky glances at him out of the corners of his eyes, and goes back to scowling at the road. Somewhere he’s acquired a pair of sunglasses. They make him look… cool. Steve never looks cool. He’s still wearing the horn-rimmed glasses that Bucky had given him at the hospital, for some reason. 

“What?” Bucky asks, when Steve just keeps staring at him. 

Steve’s completely lost his train of thought, just looking his fill at Bucky.

“Oh, um. People. Um.”

After a few more minutes, Bucky glances over at him again. “Spit it out, Steve.”

Steve is real glad that Bucky seems to have found the English language again, but he doesn’t remember Bucky being quite this sarcastic, before. That might be rose-tinted glasses, he really doesn’t know anymore.

“People might be looking for me.”

“Oh, ya think?”

Steve sighs.

“No one’s gonna find us,” Bucky assures him.

“That’s not what I was getting at.”

“Then what?”

“I could check in, maybe? With Sam, or. Maybe Natasha?”

“Not the spider.”

“Ok, Sam then. I could check in with him, let him know I was only a little bit kidnapped and that you haven’t killed me or whatever.”

Bucky grins at him, and it’s lopsided and mischievous, which also is a little bit scary. Okay, a lot scary. “Not yet.”

“Bucky.”

Bucky makes a _keep going_ gesture at him.

“It could maybe get them to back off? For a bit?”

Bucky snorts. “Chance’d be a fine thing.”

Steve smiles. Peggy used to say that. And Monty. They’d all picked it up, all the Howlies. He wonders if Bucky remembers or if it had just come out. 

“Well, maybe they’d at least worry less?”

Bucky sighs. “Fine. Tonight, after we stop.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“I could drive a while, if you want,” Steve offers again, a few minutes later. He’d offered this morning too, and Bucky had ignored him.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

Bucky gives him that flat look again. How Steve can tell with the sunglasses he doesn’t know, but it sure feels familiar as hell, and it warms him to his core. “I don’t remember much of anything, Steve, but I know letting you drive is a terrible idea.”

“Why? I’m a good driver.”

Bucky laughs. Actually laughs. It might be the best thing Steve’s heard since he woke up. “No. I know that’s not true.”

“How do you know?”

“I dunno, Steve, but I know. You’re a terrible driver.”

Steve crosses his arms and slumps down in his seat. “I am not.”

Bucky chuckles again. “Yeah, OK, Steve. Sure.”

Silence falls again. This time it lasts for a long time. Steve is content enough to just stare out the window and watch the scenery fly by, blurred around the edges, the colors bright in the morning sunshine. Bucky occasionally hums along to the songs on the radio, and Steve wonders how he knows modern pop music. He doesn’t ask, though. He doesn’t think they’re there, not yet.

He doesn’t know precisely where they are, between the two of them. Maybe not quite truly shaky ground, but certainly it’s not solid beneath his feet. 

He still doesn’t know why they’re doing this, what Bucky wants.

Or where they’re going.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

Bucky glances over at him. “Dunno. West.”

“That all you got, Buck?”

“Ain’t that enough for now?”

Steve thinks about it for a minute or two. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

\----

Time stretches, in the car. It passes in dribs and drabs. Steve seems to drift in and out of awareness. The minutes tick by, moment by moment. He sinks into them, feeling each second like an eternity. 

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon or thereabouts, during one of those eternities of quietude and soft breathing and the softer music on the radio, Bucky digs out a phone from one of his pockets and holds it out to Steve. 

“You can call him now.”

Steve looks from the phone to Bucky. “Are you sure, Buck?”

Bucky shrugs. “Go ahead. Don’t tell him where we’re headed.”

Steve frowns. “I don’t even know where we’re headed.”

“Tell him we’re in Canada or something.”

Steve looks at the phone for a moment while it’s powering up. It looks a lot like his own. He has no idea where his phone even is. He dials Sam’s number from memory.

“Hello?” Sam’s voice is rough with worry.

Steve has a brief flash of realization: he’s only known Sam for a few days. He doesn’t remember the last time he trusted someone as easily and completely as he’s trusted Sam. 

“Sam, hey.”

“Holy shit.” 

Steve hears him take a deep breath.

“Sam, I just wanted--” 

“Rogers, where are you? Are you OK?”

“I’m fine, Sam. I’m good, I promise.”

“Where are you? What happened?! You just disappeared from the hospital, the entire _world_ is out looking for you. Natasha’s gonna lose her shit-- Oh. Are you with him? Can you talk safely right now?”

Steve smiles; Sam’s concern is nice. “Yes. I’m OK, Sam.”

“He kidnapped--”

“I mean,” Steve cuts him off. “Sort of?”

“Jesus, Steve, how do you _sort of_ get kidnapped?”

“I guess I don’t really think about it as kidnapping? I was OK with it. It wasn’t against my will.”

“What the fuck, Steve.”

“I just. I wanted to check in? Let you know that I’m OK. I really am.”

Sam snorts. “Where are you headed? Is it safe to say?”

“I’m safe, Sam. Stop asking me if I’m safe, sheesh.”

“Rogers, we may have only known each other a few days but I know you well enough to know for a fact that I cannot trust you when you say you’re safe. You have, like, the worst sense of safety of anyone I’ve ever met.”

Next to Steve, Bucky nods in agreement, obviously listening in. Steve sticks his tongue out at him.

“We’re headed north, Sam. We might be in Canada, I’m not sure?”

“OK. So what do you need from me? Natasha’s looking for you. Everyone is looking for you.”

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m alive, Sam. That’s all. I’ll try to keep you updated.”

“OK, Steve.” Sam does not sound confident in Steve’s promise. He sounds, in fact, very skeptical.

“I’ll talk to you soon, Sam.”

“Yeah, Steve. Don’t be a stranger.”

“I won’t. Bye, Sam.”

They hang up. Bucky holds out his hand and Steve hands him the phone. Bucky switches it to his left hand, and crunches it. He rolls down the window, and tosses the phone out of it, rolls it back up except for a crack.

“Why’d you do that?” Steve asks.

“Can’t be traced,” Bucky replies.

“You think they’d trace the phone?”

Bucky shrugs. “I would. Ready to eat?”

“OK,” Steve agrees. He’s pretty much always ready to eat.

\----

That evening, after they’ve checked into another roadside motel (Steve doesn’t know how Bucky keeps finding these places, but this is the second time that they’ve stopped to rest, and the second motel), Bucky glares at Steve and says, “I need to go out. Stay put.”

Normally, Steve would have a lot to say about that. He feels like he should protest, if for no other reason than on principle. Bucky went to all the trouble of at least trying to disguise him (he’s got several days of growth on his face between the hospital and the driving, and it’s starting to itch), but he keeps going out and leaving Steve behind.

Maybe it would be easier to recognize them together? Steve doesn’t know, but he also doesn’t actually so much as pout about being told to stay behind. Instead he just says, “OK, Buck. Bring back food, wouldja?”

Bucky glares at him for a moment more, like he’s expecting something—probably some protest—and then nods. He looks at Steve for a moment more, suspicious and then confused, like he doesn’t quite know why he’s feeling suspicious, and then he leaves.

Steve jumps up after him and opens the door. “Buck!”

At the car, Bucky turns and looks at him.

“Books, or something? I need something to do.”

Bucky nods, and gets in the car.

\----

He returns late enough that Steve has started worrying, standing in the dark room at the window, twitching at the curtains every few moments, watching for headlights, going tense every time someone turns into the parking lot and it turns out to be not Bucky.

Finally, it is Bucky, and he parks carefully right in front of their room. Steve retreats from the window and sits on the bed further away from the door, turns on the lamp on the table between the beds, and waits. 

The tv is on, but the sound of it is muffled. Steve had tried to watch it earlier, but the words seemed to fade in and out, and nothing he tried had fixed it (mostly he’d just banged on the top of it a couple of times before giving up and going back to the window to watch).

Bucky comes into the room a moment later, arms laden with bags again, holding a stack of three pizzas. He puts them down on the bed first, before setting the other bags down around them. 

Steve sits on his hands so he doesn’t just lunge for the pizza. He’s starving.

Bucky seems to sense that, because he hands one of the pizzas to Steve.

“Thanks, Buck,” Steve says, mouth already full of delicious cheesy pizza.

“I didn’t know what kind you like,” Bucky says. He sounds chagrined, and Steve won’t swear to it but he thinks Bucky might be blushing, just a bit. 

“This is fine,” Steve replies.

“OK.” Bucky sits down with his own pizza in his lap and digs in. he makes a noise at the first bite, but after that the room is once again quiet but for the sounds of chewing and the weird muffled, muted sound of the tv by the bathroom. 

They split the third pizza. It has pepperoni on it. Bucky digs through one of the bags after he’s handed the box to Steve, and digs out a six pack of beer. They split that as well. It’s not great beer, but it goes well with the pizza. 

It’s perfect.

“This was great, Buck. Thanks,” Steve says once he’s finished his half of the pepperoni and flopped back across the bed, his bottle of beer loose in his hand. Now that he’s eaten, he’s tired again, despite not doing anything for the past few hours, or really at all that day. He’s been along for the ride, so far, at the mercy of Bucky’s plans, however nebulous those seem to be right now.

Bucky finishes his own slice and stands up, leaving his beer on the nightstand and going to the rest of his shopping. He flicks through the bags until he, apparently, finds the one he’s looking for, picks it up and hands it to Steve. 

“What’s this?” Steve asks as he takes the bag from Bucky.

Bucky shrugs, looking away, going through the other bags. 

Steve looks down, and finds the bag is full of books. Steve starts pulling them out, and finds there’s a little bit of everything in there; a couple of biographies, a history on the Napoleonic wars, one about archaeology in Egypt in the early 20th century, a romance novel, several science fiction novels, and several Agatha Christie mysteries.

Steve smiles over at Bucky, who is still going through the other bags, pretending he’s not paying close attention to Steve’s reaction.

“Hey thanks, Buck. This is great.”

“You should get some sleep. It’s late.”

Steve sighs. “Seventy odd years, and you’re still trying to take care of me all the time,” he grumbles.

Bucky looks at him, sharp, his eyes wide.

Steve remembers what Bucky said about not knowing much.

“Is that true?” Bucky asks, after a moment.

Steve nods. “Yeah, Buck. You’ve always taken real good care of me.”

Buck scowls. “Not lately.”

“You’re doing fine, Buck. I appreciate it.”

Bucky shrugs. He pulls a basic laptop out of one of the other bags, and puts it on the bed. He grabs his duffle bag and pulls another laptop out of that (where had it been? Under all the guns?), and puts it down next to the new one.

“What are you doing?” Steve asks, after watching for a few minutes. Bucky has booted up both laptops and seems to have hooked them together. Beyond that, he’s not sure what’s going on.

“Don’t worry about it,” Bucky mutters. “Get some sleep.”

Steve sighs again. He pulls one of the mysteries out of the bag Bucky had given him, and sits back against the wall behind the bed to start reading. He is quickly engrossed, and loses track of time.

The tv is still on in the background, muffled and muted, and time goes a little wonky while he’s reading, while Bucky is working on the computers. 

Bucky is still working on both of the laptops when Steve decides that he needs to get some sleep. He’s tired, but he also isn’t sure he’ll be able to sleep. He’s not really sure how he feels.

“I’m gonna try to get some sleep, Buck.”

“Been telling you that for hours,” Bucky mutters. He digs around in his duffle bag and pulls out a flashlight, turns his attention back to the laptops. “Go ahead. I’m good.”

“Do you want me to leave the light on?”

“No.”

Steve shrugs. He gets under the covers and turns the light out, listening to the sound of Bucky’s occasional muttering under his breath (in Russian again, he thinks) as he tinkers. It lulls him to sleep far quicker than he’d been expecting. 

At some point during the night, he wakes up enough to realize that Bucky is sitting in bed next to him. He must stir or make a noise or something, because Bucky puts a hand on his shoulder and murmurs, “Go back to sleep, Stevie,” and he does, falling under again without another thought.

\----

“You could let me drive.”

Bucky looks at him from the other side of the car, scandalized. “You don’t know where we’re going.”

Steve scowls. “You could tell me.”

Bucky grins at him and ducks into the car. “Why would I do that? You’re not driving.”

Steve growls. Actually growls. “You won’t let me!”

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees, every inch sincere. “Cuz you don’t know where we’re going.”

“Bucky!” But he’s laughing. He’s trying not to, because he’s been trying to get it out of Bucky since they started, where they’re headed, but Bucky hasn’t budged. He can’t figure out if it’s because Bucky doesn’t really know where they’re going either, or if it’s a security concern, or if he’s just doing it to be a little shit.

Honestly, Steve wouldn’t put it past him for it to be a little bit of all three.

“Stevie!” Bucky exclaims back, shit-eating grin wide across his face.

He doesn’t look like he’s faking the smiling anymore. It’s only been a few days, but Bucky seems more… himself. Or at least, like he’s figuring out what being himself entails. He seems to be less going through the motions of being a person, and more actually being a person. A really sarcastic person, but Steve’s OK with that. He likes it.

He likes Bucky. But then, he always has.

\----

On whatever day this is—and honestly, Steve’s started to lose track, it’s all an endless variation on being in the car with Bucky or being in another motel room with Bucky, and he’s completely OK with that never ending, if you were to ask him right this moment--Bucky and he get settled in the motel room a little earlier than usual, and Bucky gives him a look and says, “I need to go out.”

It’s pretty much the same look he gives Steve every night, the same words. Steve shrugs; it’s part of the routine. Bucky tells him, and he shrugs and doesn’t fight it. Once they’ve checked in wherever they are, Bucky goes out for anywhere from 45 minutes to a few hours. He comes back with stuff and with food.

“OK.” Steve starts digging through one of his duffle bags for the book he’s been reading. “Bring back Chinese food if you can find a place?”

When he looks up again, Bucky is giving him a suspicious look. “You never fight me on this.”

“Am I supposed to?” Steve settles himself on the (too soft, always too soft) bed and opens the book to where he’d left a scrap of paper from a motel a few days ago as his bookmark.

Bucky thinks for a moment, and then shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe.”

Steve smiles at him. “I’ll keep that in mind, Buck.”

Bucky keeps looking at him for another moment, still suspicious, and then he leaves.

It’s only about two minutes later that he comes back. “Why don’t you fight me on this? I feel like you should be fighting me on this. Why?”

Steve stares at him for a moment, and then shrugs. “I dunno, Buck. I guess maybe I used to?”

“Used to what?” Bucky sits down at his feet, staring at him, practically glaring. He seems frustrated, but Steve supposes that’s understandable, if he has all these instincts about Steve and no tangible source for them.

“Fight you more, on stuff.”

“Stuff like what?” Bucky demands. 

Steve shrugs again. “I was. Well, I got into a lot of fights as a kid.”

“With me?”

“No, we didn’t fight much. But I fought, well, most of the neighborhood at one time or another. I was angry all the time.”

“And little.”

“You remember that?”

Bucky’s the one to shrug, this time. “Sort of.”

Steve smiles. That’s great news. “I don’t want to fight you, Buck. I never have. And I guess I’m still pretty tired, a lot? From the--um. You know.”

Bucky looks away, frowning. “Yeah.”

“So I’m just. Trying to go with it. If you don’t want me to go with you wherever it is you have to go tonight, that’s ok. I’ll just stay here. Read a book. Maybe try to get something on the tv.”

“It’s probably not dangerous.”

Steve waits for a minute, but Bucky doesn’t continue. “What’s not?”

“Where I’m going tonight. It’ll probably take me most of the night to get there and back, though. It’s several hours away.”

Steve waits, again. “I could go with you, if you want.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m doing better, Buck. And you need some rest, too. You need some sleep, you shouldn’t drive all night if you’re not gonna let me drive tomorrow.” Steve reaches out, instinctual, but he realizes what he’s doing and stops himself from closing that distance and grabbing Bucky’s hand, or his wrist, or his shoulder.

Bucky grunts. He looks thoughtful. 

“Where are you going tonight, anyway?”

“To raid a HYDRA spot.”

Steve finds himself on his feet, not even sure how he’d gotten there. Bucky is looking up at him, alarm written all over his face.

“Buck. You can’t do that by yourself. You need back up. What if they--what if you--?” Steve’s throat is closing up, his lungs are seizing. He’s having an--

Bucky is pushing him down on the bed, pushing him over, pushing his head between his knees. 

His voice breaks through Steve’s panic a moment or an hour or a year later. His hand is on Steve’s neck, holding him together.

“Breathe, Stevie. Keep breathing.”

“Buck. You can’t.”

Bucky waves him off. “Relax, Steve. It’s a safe house, not a base.”

Steve finds his first deep breath since Bucky had said HYDRA.

“There most likely won’t even be anyone there, Steve. It’s just this is about as close as we’re gonna get to it, and I could use some of the stuff they should have there.”

Steve takes another breath, and then another. Bucky’s hand is still on his neck. He doesn’t seem to realize it. Or if he does, he doesn’t seem keen to move it. Steve takes immense comfort in that. He feels like he can breathe for the first time in so long. Like he can relax, let his guard down. Like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders, somehow. 

Just at the feel of Bucky’s hand on his neck. Five fingers, a palm, and the warmth of human touch. Bucky’s touch.

“OK,” Bucky says, after a while. A few minutes, an hour. An eternity. “Let’s go, then.”

He lets go of Steve, and Steve imagines it’s reluctant. There is still a part of him that’s small and asthmatic and only able to let Bucky take care of him under direst circumstances, in the darkest of nights, and that part of him _yearns_.

Slow, Steve lifts his head, sits back up. “You sure, Buck?”

Bucky shrugs, and then nods. “Yeah, what the fuck. Put some shoes on.”

Steve stands, and then-- “Should I--? Suit up?”

Bucky snorts. “Not that kind of mission, Stevie.”

Steve puts his shoes on. He follows Bucky out the door, and straight to the passenger side of the car. Where Bucky just stands and stares at him, leaning against the car with a ‘wow, you’re a dumbass’ look on his face.

It takes Steve a few moments to get it. He’s going to blame that on recovery. “You want me to drive?”

“I mean, no,” Bucky replies. But he holds out the keys. “But if I’m passed out I won’t die of a heart attack from your driving, at least.”

Steve scowls as he snatches the keys from Bucky’s hand. “I’m a good driver.”

Bucky doesn’t deign to reply. He gets in the car and when Steve gets in across from him, he’s fiddling with a phone. He finishes a moment later and hands it to Steve. “Go here.”

The phone says, “Turn left.”

Steve takes the phone and drops it in the cupholder between the seats. Bucky makes a point of buckling his seatbelt before he settles in, crosses his arms, and shuts his eyes. He’s snoring gently just a few minutes later.

Steve’s pretty sure he’s faking it, but he’s also pretty sure he hears it when Bucky’s breathing goes truly soft and slow with sleep.

He drives.

He notices when the temperature in the car starts to drop, but he attributes it to the night cooling off. A few minutes after that, he starts seeing his breath--

Wait, that’s not right. He’s seeing a cloud. Steve glances over at Bucky, sees the frown on his face, and pulls over the car. 

Bucky’s dreaming. Having a nightmare. He’s doing something magical, too. 

Steve is pretty sure a cloud is starting to form in the car. 

He has no idea what to do.

“Buck, wake up,” he says. He doesn’t raise his voice above his normal tone. He doesn’t dare reach out to touch Bucky. He wants to, but he doubts that would be a good idea, and he’d like to not have his face broken again. It’s only just more or less put itself back together.

Bucky wakes with a start and a sharp, sucked in breath. It’s been long, tense moments of waiting for it to happen, while the car got colder, and smelled more and more of rain, and Steve’s vision got more and more dim as the clouds Bucky was conjuring got thicker and thicker.

Steve tries very hard not to look at him. Not to remove his hands from the wheel or make any sudden movements. Not to startle him when he’s just awoken, because he doesn’t know who woke up. Was it Bucky, or was it the Winter Soldier? 

“Buck?” he says, softly, after listening to Bucky breathe for a while. He’s been trying to keep his own breath soft and slow, hoping it will be something Bucky can latch onto, concentrate on to help calm his own breath.

It seems to have worked.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Yeah, I’m here. I’m good.”

“I’m gonna roll the windows down now,” Steve says. He does so, and the cloud starts to dissipate. It no longer smells like oncoming rain in the car, and starts to smell of the cool-ish night air.

They sit in silence for a few minutes.

“How far out are we?” Bucky asks.

Steve doesn’t comment on how hoarse he sounds, like he’s been screaming for hours, even if he hasn’t been. Instead he picks up the phone from the cup holder and checks the directions.

“About twenty minutes,” he says.

“OK.” Bucky slumps down in the seat and stares out the window.

Steve takes the hint, puts the car back into gear, checks over his shoulder, and pulls out onto the deserted two-lane highway they’ve been on for ages. He listens for when the phone tells him to turn again, and he very studiously keeps his eyes on the road, and doesn’t look at Bucky at all.

At one point, he thinks he might feel something like the warmth of a hand hovering over his own where it’s on the gear shift, but he concentrates hard on not looking, and the feeling goes away after a few seconds.

He misses it, even if he’s at least partially sure that he’s imagining things.

The phone directs him to turn off the road, onto a gravel drive, and Steve slows the car as he approaches what looks like it may be a small house. He can barely make out its outline in the dark, until he gets closer and a couple of floodlights flick on.

Steve tenses, and Bucky makes a reassuring noise.

“Motion sensors,” he says. “Relax.”

Steve risks a glance over at him, and in the light flooding into the car from the lights, Bucky is grinning at him. He keeps the car moving up the driveway, slowly, while Bucky looks all around them, until he makes a gesture for Steve to stop, and he does so.

“Come on,” Bucky says, opening the door.

Steve follows him across the little yard (a little overgrown, but mostly well-kept. Like someone comes here pretty regularly, or at least did) to the back door. Bucky’s look tells him to keep watch, so Steve turns his back to Bucky and scans the yard, the road. 

He’s got Bucky’s six, and he doesn’t want to let him down, somehow. Not when it’s the first time Bucky’s brought him along to anything at all.

It doesn’t take Bucky long to pick the lock on the door; Steve keeps glancing over his shoulder at him working. Unlocking the door seems to trigger the secondary layer of security, though. The lights flick on again, brighter this time. There’s a noise like a hermetic seal breaking, and a little panel opens up next to the door.

Bucky scrutinizes it for a minute, and then shrugs.

“What?”

Bucky straightens up, looking at Steve. “No way of knowing if I’m still in the system. Or honestly, if I ever was in the system.”

“What does that mean?”

“I have to try it, I guess.”

“Are you kidding?”

“The whole place might blow up if I’m not.”

“Are you fucking kidding?”

Bucky shrugs. “Not really. Oh well.”

Before Steve can form a thought, Bucky has pressed his right hand against the handprint reader.

There’s a couple of soft clicks, and the door opens, just a crack.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Steve says again. To no one in particular.

Bucky looks at him and grins again. “See, we’re good.”

Steve is speechless.

Bucky leaves him on the doorstep, walking into the house and looking around. He flips a switch, and a couple of lights come on.

“See if there’s any food in the fridge, Stevie,” he calls as he walks off, clearly looking for something.

Steve jolts out of his stupor and steps into the house. He’s in the kitchen, so he does as Bucky says, and goes to the fridge.

There’s nothing in it. It’s not even on. Steve blinks into the fridge for a moment, before he realizes he’s waiting for the light to come on. 

He’s gotten so used to being here, in the future where even refrigerators are smart that the fact that this one isn’t plugged in or whatever is disconcerting.

His life is weird.

“Nothing here, Buck,” he calls.

“Check the cabinets,” Bucky calls back. It sounds like he’s in another room, down a hall maybe.

Steve checks the cabinets. There’s only a little bit there, just a couple of dry and canned goods. Nothing that looks particularly appetizing.

Why is Bucky having him check the-- Oh.

Steve scowls and shuts the cabinet he’s peering into. He’s being managed. Kept out of the way. He should have words with Bucky about that. 

Steve heads off through the house, looking for Bucky. He finds him in a back room. Steve supposes it was meant to be a bedroom, but it’s set up as something like a combination between an office and a supply room. 

There’s a duffle bag on the floor, half full of things Steve isn’t looking at very closely, at least not right now. Bucky is at the desk, looking at a laptop. 

“No food?” he asks, without looking up.

“Haha,” Steve replies. “I don’t need to be-- to be--” He can’t come up with the word he wants. “Managed,” he says, after a moment.

Bucky does look at him now, brow creased. “Hey, Steve. No.”

“You don’t need to keep me out of the way, Buck. You can just tell me.”

Bucky straightens up and comes over to him. “Steve.”

Steve takes a step back. Bucky doesn’t come any closer.

“I’ll be in the car, Buck.” 

He turns and goes, leaving Bucky standing in the middle of the room. He walks back through the house, deliberately not looking back, and out to the car, where he sits in the driver's seat and breathes, and breathes, and breathes until his breath comes easier, and his thoughts calm down, and his heartbeat returns to normal, and Bucky comes out of the house with two duffle bags slung over his shoulder, a scowl on his face. He leans over outside the passenger door and says, “Pop the trunk.”

Steve pops the trunk, and watches in the rearview as Bucky puts the duffle bags in, and shuts it again. He walks back to the passenger side of the car, and he stands there for a few minutes before he opens the door and gets into the car.

They sit there in awkward, uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. Steve eventually turns the car on, and gets it turned around and headed back down the driveway. He assumes they’re heading back to the motel they’d checked into.

He doesn’t ask.

It’s a while before Bucky finally speaks. “I wasn’t trying to manage you.”

Steve grunts, but doesn’t answer.

“I was trying to give you a hard time. Yanno? Pull your leg.”

Steve risks a glance over at Bucky. He’s glaring out the window, as best Steve can tell.

“I’m not--” Steve starts. “I’m not--”

“Not what?” Bucky asks.

Steve shrugs, frustrated. “I don’t know. Whatever it is you think I am. Something to be protected. I can take care of myself.”

“But you don’t have to,” Bucky murmurs.

Steve shudders, but he doesn’t reply.

The rest of the drive is silent.

\----

“Steve,” Bucky says, when they’ve pulled back into the motel parking lot, and Steve has shut off the car.

Steve waits a moment, but Bucky doesn’t say anything else. So he doesn’t wait any longer. He gets out of the car and goes back into their room. He doesn’t know what Bucky wants to say, and he’s not especially open to hearing it right now anyway. He’s still angry, and it feels familiar and comforting, being angry. Angry at Bucky, angry at the world.

Angry at his place in it, stranded out of his own time, without even his best friend with him.

At least, that’s how it feels right now.

Steve strips down to his underwear and pulls back the covers of the bed further away from the door. He gets in and lays down, pulling the covers up to his chin.

Bucky had come in behind him, and is still on the other side of the room, by the door. Watching Steve; he can feel Bucky’s eyes on him. He can practically see the expression on his face, for all that he’s turned away from Bucky, given him his back.

“Steve,” he says, again.

Steve doesn’t answer. He shuts his eyes. He wants to hold onto this, right now. Just for now. It’s familiar, holding onto the anger. For a large part of his life, it was the only thing he had to hold onto, other than Bucky himself. And he rarely let himself cling to Bucky the way he wanted to.

He hears Bucky sigh heavily, and he hears him move around the room. Steve keeps his eyes shut. It sounds like Bucky is sulking. Bucky used to be even better at sulking than Steve was. 

Eventually, Bucky stops moving around, and Steve falls asleep listening to his own breath.

\----

He wakes up.

Bucky is sitting between the bed and the wall, watching him.

Steve makes a noise; he’s not sure what kind of noise it is, or is meant to be. Maybe it’s just an ‘I’m awake’ noise. 

“Were you watching me sleep?” he mumbles.

Bucky scowls and rolls his eyes, which means yes.

Steve stays curled up under the covers, and Bucky keeps watching him. After a few minutes of intense staring, Bucky speaks. “I don’t remember much, Steve.”

Steve nods. He’s figured as much.

“A lot of death and destruction and--” He takes a deep breath. “Way worse. A little bit of you. Hot summers and being so fucking in--” Bucky takes another breath. “Anyway. Not much.”

“It’s OK, Buck,” Steve mumbles, mostly into his pillow.

Bucky shakes his head. “That’s not what I’m saying, Steve. I’m doing this on instinct. All of it. I’m just going with it. I don’t have some grand plan.”

“Oh.”

“And I’m pretty sure trying to take care of you is about as ingrained in me as breathing. So you’re shit outta luck getting me to stop.”

“Oh,” Steve says again. “Well--”

“You can be mad about it if you want, but it’s not gonna stop anytime soon. So. Deal with it.”

Steve snorts. Now that sounds like the Bucky he remembers from his childhood. “OK, Buck. I’ll deal with it.”

Bucky nods, and looks away. “Good. Now get up, daylight’s wasting.”

\----

Bucky is back to driving. He still hasn’t told Steve where they’re headed. When they cross into New Mexico, he points at the sign and says, “We’re here.”

“New Mexico? This is where we’re going?”

“For now.”

Steve glares at him and goes back to staring out the window. Things have been a little tense today, but they’re getting better.

\----

He looks at Bucky over the top of the car, when they’re stopped at a roadside food stand. They’ve both eaten their weight in hot dogs and barbecue brisket.

“You’re still you,” he says. “Even if you don’t remember. Even if you never remember. You’re still you. OK? You can trust me on this one.”

Bucky blinks at him a few times before he nods. “OK.”

\----

They stop earlier in the afternoon than usual, and at a nicer-than-usual motel as well. As usual, Bucky leaves Steve in the car to go and check in, and he comes back with the key and gathers Steve the way he gathers his duffle bag out of the trunk of the car.

Steve… goes with it. He hasn’t protested this far, he’s not really prepared to start now.

Soon, probably. But not now. 

And as usual, Bucky gives Steve a critical look once they’ve lugged everything into the room and says, “I need to go out for a while.”

Steve makes a face. “For what?”

He figures he should push back a little, at least.

Bucky shrugs. “Just some stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Well, food for one. And some clothes.”

“Don’t we already have enough clothes?”

Bucky shrugs. “Well, disguise clothes. We’re gonna be in public tomorrow.”

That’s interesting. They only thing they’ve done during the day so far is drive, and drive some more, and sometimes stop for food and bathroom breaks, and then drive some more. So this pronouncement that they’re going to be around people tomorrow is. Interesting. Steve is immediately intrigued, and Bucky leaves while he’s still thinking that over.

Which was obviously what Bucky had intended, because by the time Steve realizes, he’s gone.

Steve scowls at nothing in particular, and starts going through the bags, looking for a book.

\----

It’s several hours before Bucky returns, laden as usual with bags of food and clothes. He’s also bought a few more books, and Steve tries to hide how pleased he is that Bucky did that.

“So you gonna tell me what we’re doing tomorrow?” he asks, when he’s finished his pizza. 

Bucky shakes his head. “It’s a surprise. But--”

Steve looks at him, expectant.

“You have to roll with it, OK? Like, if stuff happens. I’ve got a plan. Just go with it.”

“Well, that’s not ominous and vaguely frightening.”

Bucky shakes his head. “It’s not anything bad. Just, our disguises. It’ll help. Just follow my lead, OK?”

Steve shrugs. “Yeah, OK. It’s not like you’re not being super cagey or anything that’ll make me suspicious.”

Bucky grins at him. “That’s the spirit. It’s not bad, Stevie. I swear.”

“You’ve gotten me in a lot of trouble that way, Buck.”

Bucky points at him. “Now that is a damn lie and you know it, Steven Grant.”

“No idea what you’re talking about, Buck. You were always the idea guy.”

Bucky snorts.

\----

“Why am I wearing this?” Steve asks, looking at himself. He’s got on navy blue chinos that are cut much slimmer than he’d thought they would be, an obnoxiously patterned belt, a white polo shirt that really doesn’t leave anything to the imagination but at least isn’t as tight as the Captain America shirt Bucky had first put him in, and a pair of sneakers that at least fit better than the ridiculous ones Natasha had put him in when they’d been on the run. The real doozy is the baseball cap Bucky had given him, with a logo he doesn’t recognize. At least it’s not the Yankees.

Bucky finally comes out of the bathroom, where he’d been… drying his hair, apparently. He’s wearing a t-shirt with a Nirvana logo on it (Steve’s heard of them, and he’s vaguely proud he understands the reference) and a flannel shirt over it, with skinny jeans and the same combat boots he’s been wearing this whole time. His hair is a cloud around his face, fluffy and oh-so-soft looking. He paws at it, seemingly self-conscious, and hands Steve a comb. 

“Gimme a hand, wouldja?” Bucky turns around in front of Steve, and for a minute, Steve just stares. Bucky wants him to--?

He gets with the program and decides not to look gift-horses in their mouths, and starts to comb out Bucky’s hair, smoothing it down, into a semblance of order. 

His hair is as soft as it looks, and Steve might spend longer than he needs to brushing it. Bucky doesn’t seem to mind, though, because he doesn’t say anything, and the longer Steve spends running the comb through his hair, long after it’s detangled and smooth, the more he relaxes.

Finally, Steve realizes just how long he’s been running his hand and the comb through Bucky’s hair, and he stops, takes a step back. “Um. I think you’re good.”

After a moment, Bucky rouses, turning to smile softly at Steve. “Thanks.” He crosses the room and picks up a hair tie from the dresser, pulling the top half of his hair back into a little tail.

It’s a good look on him. 

Bucky surveys Steve, who feels a little self-conscious and nothing like himself. Bucky is shaking his head, crossing the room again, and he reaches out and plucks the cap off Steve’s head, switching it around and putting it back on his head, only backwards. He looks around the room until he sees the fake glasses Steve’s been wearing, and he picks those up and hands them to Steve.

Steve puts them on, and Bucky takes a step back to survey him again. This time, he nods. “You look great.”

Steve gives Bucky a once over. He seems to be missing something, but Steve can’t put his finger on it until Bucky grabs what turns out to be a leather motorcycle jacket from the last bag left on the bed and shrugs it on.

Now he looks perfect, damn him.

“You too,” Steve manages, and it comes out choked off and hoarse.

Bucky grins at him, like he knows exactly what effect he’s having on Steve.

“Come on, let’s get going.”

\----

They’re at Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

Steve thinks he’s more than a little bit in love with Bucky for this.

Well, he’s definitely more than a little bit in love with Bucky, for myriad reasons, but this is at least halfway up the list right now.

They get out of the car at the visitor’s center, and Bucky looks at him, really way too grim for how awesome this is.

“Look,” he says. “We’re a couple.”

Steve blinks at him. “What now?”

“If anyone looks at you like they’re starting to wonder if you’re Captain fuckin’ America, do something coupley. No one will think you’re Captain America if they think you’re queer.”

Steve glares at him. “I _am_ queer.”

Bucky gives him an eloquent ‘no shit, Sherlock’ look. “Yeah, I know, but people don’t believe that of you.”

Steve glares harder. “How do you know?” he growls.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “I know what Google is, Steve. You got co-opted by conservatives while you were dead.”

“Don’t I fuckin’ know it.” Steve is as disgusted as ever by this more than a little ironic turn of events. It’s like people have no idea where he’d come from, or who he’d been, or what the fuckin’ Eugenics movement had been about.

Steve keeps grumbling under his breath while they walk into the visitors’ center to get the lay of the land, and he doesn’t say anything when Bucky grabs his hand and intertwines their fingers. 

It sends sparks through him, settling into a little ball of nerves in the pit of his stomach.

He’s so sunk. And so in love.

And he doesn’t want to risk anything, not right now, not when Bucky’s only just gotten away from HYDRA. He won’t do anything that might in any way take Bucky’s choice away from him.

He’s afraid that Bucky would feel obligated. He’d known when they were kids, about Steve, and he’d never abandoned him or made fun of him for it. Never judged him. But things may have changed. 

He doesn’t want Bucky to feel like he has to be with Steve, just because they’re both here, and Bucky’s been taking care of him.

\----

They spend the day right around the visitors’ center, going through the caverns and on one of the tours with a park ranger. They eat at the visitors’ center, and they stick around at the end of the day to watch the bats come out of the caverns for the night. 

Bucky holds his hand pretty much the whole day. Occasionally, when someone is looking at them, or even in their general direction, he’ll do something like bump their shoulders together, smoldering at him from beneath his lashes, or lay his head on Steve’s shoulder, or something else affectionate and easy and comfortable.

Steve spends the whole day waiting for these things to happen and getting a little nervous thrill every time they do.

While they’re waiting for the bats, Bucky stands behind him and puts his arms around Steve’s waist, leaning against him, a long line of warmth all the way from his shoulders to his feet.

“What are you doing?” Steve asks. He can’t stop himself.

“Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable. No one is looking at us now, are they?”

Steve snorts. He’s heard that one before. But he glances around, and no one near them is looking at them. It’s mostly families and a couple of other couples, chatting quietly while everyone waits for the bats. 

“No one’s looking,” Steve confirms.

“Good.” Bucky hooks his chin over Steve’s shoulder, briefly touching his nose to Steve’s neck, almost a nuzzle, and they stay like that until the bats have all flown and it’s time to head out of the park.

Steve has no idea what to think.

\----

On their way out of the park, Steve says, “That pass is good for a couple of days, right?”

Bucky glances at the tickets they’d bought on their way into the park and nods. “Yeah, three days.”

“Are we coming back?” Steve really hopes they’re coming back. He’d really enjoyed the day, and there’s still a ton of stuff to see and do.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Definitely. Might as well get our money’s worth.” He’s trying to sound a little reluctant about it, but Steve can see he’s pleased, that he wants to come back at least as much as Steve does.

“We should bring our own food in tomorrow, I saw some picnic tables. And we could do some hiking, maybe? Although,” and Steve gestures at himself. “Not in this getup.”

Bucky smiles at him. “Yeah, OK.” He fiddles with his phone for a few minutes, and it starts giving him directions from the park. Bucky follows them and they end up at a sporting goods store.

Bucky doesn’t object to Steve getting out of the car to follow him into the store. He just holds out his hand until Steve takes it, and they walk in hand-in-hand. Bucky buys them both smallish hiking backpacks, water bottles, and a cooler. 

From there they head to a nearby grocery store, loading up on food to eat the next day, and lots of it, along with ice to keep everything cold in the cooler. 

Bucky buys another pack of Oreos, and Steve can’t figure out if it’s because he likes them himself, or if he knows that Steve has taken a fondness for them. 

Maybe it’s both.

After loading up, they stop at a Chinese food place in the same shopping center as the grocery store and pick up dinner, then head back to the motel. 

“I swear, Buck, if I never eat Chinese food again after this trip it’ll be too soon,” Steve says, after they’ve brought everything into their room and left it all in a jumble in favor of eating dinner before it all gets cold. 

“Lies,” Bucky replies. “You’ll just eat better Chinese food than this.”

Steve shrugs. “Probably.”

They eat quietly for a few minutes. 

“I was thinking it might be time to go back to New York,” Steve says, eventually. “I mean, in general. When we’re done. With this. Trip, I mean.”

_Smooth, Rogers._

Bucky glances at him, just long enough that Steve knows he’s listening. 

“You could--”

“Steve, don’t.”

Steve shuts up. 

After a few moments, Bucky puts down his food and leans over towards Steve. They’re seated across from each other on the two beds in the room. Bucky breaches that distance to put his hand on Steve’s knee, just for a moment. “I can’t go back, Stevie. Not yet. I got. Stuff. I need to do.”

“Like what?” Steve can’t help but ask. Does it involve him? Does Bucky want him there, even?

Bucky shrugs. “Well, for the next two days, trek through a National Park with my best guy. Beyond that, I guess we’ll see.”

It’s a deflection, but Steve lets him have it. 

_Best guy._

It makes him feel all warm inside, and gives him that nervous feeling he’s been getting all day. He knows Bucky did it on purpose, and he knows he can’t trust it. And yet. 

It shuts him up, and it deflects him from wondering what it is Bucky feels like he needs to do, and it makes him feel, well. Loved. Wanted.

It’s a nice feeling. 

After they’ve eaten, Steve reads for a while, and Bucky goes to take a quick shower, rinsing off the sweat of the day. Steve goes after him, and there’s a quiet sort of peace between them, in the room. It feels safe, like a little bubble around them, out of time, away from the world. 

Steve doesn’t want that bubble to burst. Ever.

He’s pretty sure he won’t get that wish. 

“Should I set an alarm?” he asks, when he decides it’s time to get some sleep.

Bucky is on one of the laptops, and he glances up at Steve. “God, no. We can relax for a couple days.”

 

“Do you think this motel has breakfast?”

Bucky snorts. “No. But I saw a diner nearby when we were headed back from the grocery store. We could go there when we get up, before we go back to Carlsbad.”

“That sounds good.”

Steve stands between the two beds for a few minutes, dithering. 

Bucky glances up at him again, giving him a ‘what are you doing’ kind of look.

“Move over,” Steve says. 

Bucky looks at him for a long moment, and then obeys, adjusting so he’s on the other side of the bed, propped up against a couple of pillows with the computer in his lap.

Steve grabs one of the pillows from the second bed and puts it in the spot Bucky had just vacated, getting into bed and lying down. He turns on his side, facing Bucky, and looks up at him. Bucky’s eyebrows are somewhere near his hairline, naked surprise on his face. Steve gives him his best ‘I dare you to say something’ glare, and aggressively makes himself comfortable.

“This is a bad idea, Steve,” Bucky murmurs.

“No it’s not,” Steve replies, shutting his eyes.

Bucky doesn’t argue further. He does put his hand on Steve’s head, scritching his scalp a few times before going back to whatever it is he’s been doing on the computer.

Steve falls asleep listening to Bucky tapping at the keyboard and occasionally muttering to himself in what he guesses is Russian. It’s comforting. It reminds him of long ago, when Bucky would come over when he was sick and read to him, even though Bucky’s not reading to him now. 

\----

Steve wakes up warm and comfortable and… with his face mashed into Bucky’s ribs, right under his armpit.

He smells good. Familiar. Like home. It’s not fair.

Steve snorts and shifts, stretching out; the bed is really much too small for the two of them, but this is the best Steve has felt upon waking up in ages, possibly since the first day after getting the serum. Before the world had crashed in on him yet again.

Bucky moves the arm that had been over his head while Steve’s face was in his ribs, leaving his hand on Steve’s back. Steve takes that as encouragement not to get up yet. He’s totally OK with that. He tries to be subtle about it, but he snuggles closer and sighs, content.

The soft laugh from Bucky indicates that he was not very subtle at all.

“I had a dream,” Bucky says, after a while. Out of the blue, like he’s just making conversation. Maybe he is. “Or maybe a memory.”

“Was it a good dream?”

“Yeah,” he says, slow like he’s thinking it through, turning it over in his head still. “Yeah, it was. I dreamed that you kissed me.”

Steve goes stiff all over. He takes a deep breath, trying to figure out what to say, but Bucky squeezes him a little, and keeps going.

“You were real scrappy, and tiny.” He’s measuring out each statement like he’s trying it out, getting the taste of it, figuring out his dream as he explains it. Like he’s holding onto it. “You kissed me like you were tryin’ to start a fight, I think. Like you were real mad about it.”

Steve grumbles a little.

“Did that happen? For real?”

It takes Steve a while to answer. Partly he’s terrified.

OK, mostly he’s terrified.

“I didn’t think you remembered,” is what he says. He’s not sure that’s what he meant to say. He wanted to say something profound, something meaningful.

Bucky gives him another little squeeze. It’s comforting and encouraging.

“I was drunk,” Steve goes on.

Great. Real smooth, Rogers.

“You were drunk,” he adds. “I was… desperate, I guess. You were about to ship out overseas. I needed to do something. Anything, really, to get some of what I was feeling out of me. To show you.”

“And then I left,” Bucky says. It’s not a question.

“And then you left for the war.”

“And you went and got yourself experimented on.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. He can’t regret it, though. He doesn’t, especially not here in the future, lying in bed with Bucky.

“Why didn’t it happen again?” Bucky asks, after a bit of quiet.

Steve shrugs. He lifts his head so he can look up at Bucky. “I was scared. You were… fragile when I found you. You pretended you weren’t, but you were. I could see it, and I should’ve let you go home, Buck. And you knew I was queer but you didn’t hate me for it, even though you could’ve. You were real good to me, my whole life, and I was so selfish with you.”

Bucky scowls at the ceiling. “I didn’t realize it was remorse hour,” he says. “I pretended real hard I was OK after you found me, I think. And I pretended I didn’t remember you kissin’ on me. You deserved a shot at happiness, with that dame o’ yours. I don’t think I wanted to get in your way.”

“I--” Steve starts to say, and then stops. “I think we got in our own way, the both of us.”

“Yeah, maybe a bit,” Bucky agrees.

“I loved Peg,” Steve goes on. “I _love_ Peg. But hey, Buck.”

He waits until Bucky looks at him. 

“Not like you. You were it.”

There, he said it. He can die of mortification now.

“Steve--” Bucky starts. 

Steve shushes him, puts his hand over his mouth. “You don’t have to say anything, Buck.”

Bucky nods, and Steve takes his hand back.

“You’re a punk,” Bucky says. 

“Jerk,” Steve mutters back, because that’s always been the response. 

Bucky pats him on the back, and starts to extricate himself. “C’mon, let’s get moving, I’m hungry.”

Steve watches him cross the room and start getting dressed, enjoying a last moment or two of peace before he gets up and does the same.

At the diner down the street, they order essentially the entire menu, and happily and companionably work their way through the food, sharing most of it back and forth between them and drinking what feels like at least a whole pot of coffee, with their waitress watching with wide eyes from behind the counter. She doesn’t seem to recognize Steve, though, and he supposes the backwards ballcap, the beard, and the glasses really do have the intended effect. 

Once they’re finished, they settle up (and Bucky leaves a hefty tip, possibly in apology), and make their way back to the park.

Both of them are dressed more comfortably today, although Bucky is still wearing his combat boots. 

The day passes quickly; they spend most of it hiking above ground. Steve uses Bucky’s phone to take tons of pictures, including a couple of selfies of the both of them. One of them he emails to himself.

“You should send it to the bird guy,” Bucky says, when Steve shows it to him. “And the spider.”

Steve looks at him, and Bucky shrugs, taking a long pull from his bottle of water. 

“They’re your friends,” Bucky says. “They’re probably worried about you.”

“Do you think the telling them we were going north thing worked?”

Bucky shrugs again. “Maybe for a few days, but probably not as well as I had hoped.”

“Natasha,” Steve agrees. 

Bucky nods. 

Steve fiddles the phone between his fingers for a few moments, and then sends the photo to Sam, and to the most recent email he has from Natasha. Hopefully she’ll get it. 

The phone buzzes a moment later, with a text from Sam, “Headed north my ass, Rogers.”

Steve sends back a smiling emoji and, ‘We’re having a good time.’

‘Well, good, I guess.’

Steve and Bucky resume their hike. A little way down the path, which isn’t really quite wide enough for both of them even though they’re staying side by side anyway, Bucky laces their fingers together again.

Steve looks around for other people, instinctively, remembering their cover, but there’s no one around. He looks at Bucky, and Bucky looks at him from the corners of his eyes, smiling soft and fond.

“Jerk,” Steve mutters. But he squeezes Bucky’s fingers between his own.

They keep going.

\----

Their third and final day in Carlsbad, they hike through as much of the caverns as they can cover. Steve takes a million pictures, and wishes over and over that he had a sketchbook and pencils with him, because all of the formations are stark and dramatically lit for maximum effect and he wants to draw all of them. Bucky keeps close by his side, pointing out more and more things he should capture, and Steve loves him for it.

When the sun has set and the bats have all flown for the night, they walk back to the car, hand in hand. 

“What do you want for dinner tonight?” Bucky asks. 

Steve shrugs. “Anything but Chinese food, please.”

“We could go back to the diner again? That place is really good. I think they have hamburgers.”

“And pancakes,” Steve points out. Bucky had eaten three orders of pancakes for breakfast that morning: blueberry, buttermilk, and chocolate chip.

“Done,” Bucky replies, grinning at him.

\----

Back at the motel, Bucky looks around and says, “We could just leave now. Drive through the night.”

Steve looks at him. “Be somewhere new in the morning?”

Bucky looks back at him, and there’s something new and intense in his gaze. “I want to see the ocean.”

Steve lets him look, and does his best to let himself be _seen_ , and eventually he nods. “OK. Let’s go then.”

“I’ll go check out,” Bucky says, grinning now.

“I’ll pack up.”

Steve moves around the room, packing up their clothes and assorted stuff and the extra food quickly and as efficiently as he can manage while Bucky goes to the front office and checks them out of the motel.

He’s putting the last couple of bags in the back seat of the car when Bucky comes back (all the leftover snacks), and he tosses Bucky the keys. 

“Let me know when you want a break and I’ll drive for a while,” he says.

Bucky grimaces at him, but he nods too. 

“You can nap while I drive,” Steve points out. “Won’t have to see any of my excellent, excellent driving skills.”

Bucky snorts, and starts the car.

\----

Steve decides to stop around daybreak. He thinks they’re somewhere in Arizona. He stops at a McDonalds and orders a ton of food and then parks the car, divvying the food out between himself and Bucky. They both dig in, eating in companionable silence, just the soft sound of the radio in the background.

“Should we keep going?” Steve asks, when he’s getting to the end of his food. 

“You think we could make it to the ocean?”

Steve picks up the phone from between them and checks quickly. “Yeah, looks like it. It would take pretty much the whole day, though.”

Bucky shrugs. “We can take turns driving, I guess. You want me to take over a while?”

“Did you sleep at all?”

He shrugs again. “Yeah, some. About as much as I ever do, I guess. Let’s keep going.”

Steve looks at him for a moment, reaches out without thinking and brushes a lock of hair behind his ear, and then realizes what he’s done. 

Bucky smiles at him and takes his hand, pressing his palm against his cheek. Steve watches as he lets his eyes fall shut, holding Steve’s hand against his face. They sit like that for a while. Steve leans back a little, leaning his head back against the headrest and just watching Bucky.

“OK,” Bucky says after a bit, opening his eyes and letting Steve’s hand fall away. “Let’s go to the coast. I’ll drive a while.”

Steve gets out of the car and stretches in the early morning heat. Bucky follows suit and comes around the car. Steve is still stretching when Bucky stops next to him, reaching out and laying his hand against Steve’s side, where his shirt is pulled up. Steve keeps his hands above his head, enjoying the feel of Bucky’s skin against his own.

Bucky’s been more tactile, the past few days; ever since they’d gotten to Carlsbad.

Steve loves it.

After a moment, Bucky pats his side, and then gets in the car. Steve goes around to the passenger side and gets in. He picks up his coffee and takes a sip, and settles in for the ride.

\----

Bucky’s driving again when they cross into Mexico, later that day. Time seems to have lost all meaning for Steve. They’ve been in the car for hours or days, or decades or centuries. It doesn’t really matter anymore. He rolls down the windows and he can smell the ocean, and what he thinks might be eucalyptus.

They don’t even check passports at the crossing. Steve is frankly a tiny bit appalled.

And then Bucky’s pulling over at the side of the road, turning off the car and getting out. The road is deserted, and the sand between them and the water is so white it’s almost blinding in the afternoon sun, and the Pacific is right there, and just. It’s so blue.

Steve sort of stumbles out of the car, trailing after Bucky, who’s going straight for the water, pulling off his boots and dropping them in the sand without taking his eyes off the water. He pulls his shirt over his head next, and drops that too, and then the sweats he’s been wearing. 

Steve stops on the sand by Bucky’s shirt and watches as Bucky goes right into the water, diving over a wave and under.

He comes up again moments later, sputtering and cursing. “Holy fuck this water is cold!”

Steve keeps going to the waterline, waiting for Bucky to come back to him. Bucky does so in short order, wading back out of the water, shaking it out of his hair. 

“I thought the ocean was warmer than this!” he says. 

Steve shrugs. “Maybe the other ocean?”

Bucky grumbles and shivers a little. Steve holds out his arms, and Bucky steps right into them, huddling against Steve for warmth. Steve drapes his arms easily around Bucky, and they both watch the ceaseless breaking waves of the Pacific.

“I’ve been practicing,” Bucky says. “With water. In the shower, mostly.”

Steve chuckles, and rests his chin on Bucky’s wet hair. “OK.”

“I bet I could walk on water,” he adds.

Steve laughs. “I’m not so sure about that, but we can try to find somewhere to rent a boat if you want to try it.”

Bucky slides his arms around Steve, and looks up at him. He looks so fond it makes Steve ache. He’s still a little damp, although most of the water has either dried in the warmth of the sun or absorbed into Steve’s clothes. 

Bucky presses their lips together, briefly. It’s over almost as soon as it starts, but it might be the best kiss Steve’s ever received.

“What was that for?” Steve asks. His lips are tingling.

Bucky shrugs a little, in his embrace, and Steve tightens his arms so that they’re really hugging. 

“Just wanted to, is all,” Bucky says.

They stand quietly for a little while longer, until Steve yawns, and Bucky pokes him. “We should find a place to stay. Somewhere nice-ish. We should still lay low.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. He doesn’t make any move to go back to the car or even to let go of Bucky, though. Bucky doesn’t seem especially keen to let go of Steve either, though.

“We could keep going,” Bucky murmurs, long minutes later. Long, long sweet minutes of nothing but the ocean and them.

Steve thinks about it for a while. He knows it can’t last, not forever.

Maybe not forever, but for a while? That, he’ll take. He’ll grab it with both hands and cleave to it.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees.

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/belovedmuerto/42648407452/in/dateposted-public/)

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: Bucky CAN walk on water, but only for like two seconds. Water doesn't like him _that_ much.
> 
> [My tumblr](http://www.belovedmuerto.tumblr.com); [Deej's tumblr](http://www.djchika.tumblr.com)


End file.
